Court Fixes Monday For Judgment in Dasuki’s Aide’s Suit

A High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in Jabi has fixed judgment for Monday in a fundamental human rights enforcement suit filed by a former aide to the ex-National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki, Col. Nicholas Ashinze.

Ashinze, who has been in detention since December 23 last year, is seeking an order releasing him on bail.

He wants the court to direct the respondents to tender a public apology and pay him N500m as compensation for wrongful detention.

Named as respondents in the suit were the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, the Chief of Army Staff and the Nigerian Army.

Ashinze, through his lawyer, Mike Ozekhome (SAN), alleged that he had been in custody of the respondents for no verifiable reasons.

He urged the court to declare that his arrest and continued detention since December 23, 2015 “without being given any reason and without granting him administrative bail within 24 hours or 48 hours of his arrest and detention, is illegal, wrongful, unlawful and unconstitutional.”

Ozekhome argued that the action of the respondents against his client constituted “a blatant violation” of the applicant’s fundamental rights.

He urged the court to grant bail to his client on self-recognizance, particularly when none of the respondents filed any counter-affidavit to oppose the suit, stressing that the applicant is still a serving colonel in the Nigerian Army.

Ozekhome said: “My lord, in law, the facts are deemed admitted for all purposes. In all the cases cited, the courts are clear that you do not need to force a person to file a counter-affidavit as all the facts averred by the applicant are deemed admitted, having not been contradicted with a counter affidavit”.

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